Eyes on the Prize II; Interview with Bernard LaFayette

One of the reasons we were pushing for SCLC to come to Chicago, is that we were pushing for SCLC to come to Chicago is because there was this myth about the subtlety of the problems in Chicago and people say they have problems but they're not the same as in the South and it's easier to address the problems in the South because they're so blatant and obvious but things in Chicago sort of beneath the surface and they sort of smooth over and the real issues are not there. Well one of the things that Martin Luther King did in the movement was really dramatize the issues by his presence and being able to articulate them in such a way that everything became very obvious. So that was one of the reasons why we were interested in coming to Chicago also because

there were so many people who were affected by the problems in the North and it was just simply a symbol. Chicago was a symbol of things that were happening in places like New York and Detroit, Philadelphia, New York and other large cities, metropolitan areas. So while the South benefited from the support that was in the North for the Southern movement many times we were not able as a movement to address the problems in the local urban northern communities. So this was very important because a large number of people were affected by those problems. And you also mentioned that you wanted to see what would happen when you brought the violent movement north and I said that there were a lot of stubbornness and disobedience here. Did you talk about that? Chicago was really sort of an experiment to see if non-violence could apply to the northern problems in the ghettos and that sort of thing. One of the things that we were concerned about was how do we in effect create the drama and the sympathy for the non-violent approach?

Well, in deciding on Chicago it was a toss-up between several other places. Why did you push for HCLC to come to Chicago in a sense that you're experimenting with a novel with the Mississippi Black folks here, the Daily Machine, you know what you expected for daily. Why did you push to come to Chicago? One of the reasons we pushed to come to Chicago is because while we had a lot of support from the northern cities for our movement in the south, there were nevertheless problems that existed, you know, really severe problems of people and the slum areas of Chicago, for example, in other places in the North. And this was an opportunity to experiment with the whole non-violent approach to see whether or not we could apply some of the same organizing techniques and some of the same principles and strategies to deal with the

problem in the south that we're using the south to apply to the north. And that was a basic reason why we wanted to come to Chicago. The other reason Chicago, as opposed to some other places is because for the year, say for example, the 1965 study was done, I believe it was by the Urban League, but it said that something like 42 percent of the blacks in Chicago were either first a second generation from Mississippi. So you had a lot of people from Mississippi and that was the reason, you know, Chicago is right above your Mississippi, so people migrate straight up to line. So there was a good deal of support because what you're talking about is dealing with northern Mississippians and we had a lot of experience dealing with black Mississippians. So here they were transplanted north, some had very close relationships and would go back and forth and spend part of the time. So therefore, there was a good deal of appreciation for what we're doing. That was a good

deal of respect for Martin Luther King and a good deal of support for the movement itself. So these are the kind of things that made it possible. Also, the image of Chicago in terms of its politics, in terms of its, you know, image and liberal mayor. Mayor daily was considered a liberal mayor. It was very supportive of civil rights in the south. And even in the north that we found there in Chicago, here in Chicago, black elected officials were congressmen and I'm a congressman Dawson and some of the others. On the local level, he had city councilmen. So you had a good deal of participation in the government. So we felt that we had some friends and that by dramatizing some of the problems and issues that Martin Luther King could very well do and some organizers from the south, we could begin to address these issues and also begin to help Chicago as an example for other northern cities to deal effectively with the problems

of the slums and the ghettos and that sort of thing. Well, I was asked to take on a project for the American Friends Service Committee for the summer, the Urban Affairs Program to see how we began to experiment with nonviolent organizing in the ghetto community. And I remember being asked by Jim Lawson, who had recommended me to go north and I'd work with him in Chicago and Nashville and also in many other places. That was a little bit of fear on my part. I say, well, you know, Chicago, a lot of the first things we did. When I came north as an organizer to Chicago, I had a different kind of fear. In fact,

I took out an extra life insurance policy because, you know, in the movement, we always had risk and we knew that we always felt that we would be, you know, like the song says, we should overcome. And in Chicago, the question is, well, I would be able to survive and then we would overcome because in Chicago, you could get killed on the street, you know, for no cause. And of course, I was going to die for a cause, something was worthwhile. So, but, you know, this was part of the reality of being an organizer in Chicago. So it was different. It was coal and coal not only in terms of the temperature and the climate, but it was coal in terms of how people, you know, reacted, which is quite different. Except when we found people, you know, from Mississippi and South, they were just the same. I mean, they cooked the same and there was very warm and friendly.

So that was a kind of receptive attitude on the part of the people there. And they understood what we were about and they were ready, you know, to join in with us. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're successful. Talk a little bit about black folks and their receptivity to you and also with black clergy. What kind of response did you get first from people and then from the clergy? There was in many areas, there was very warm response and good deal of support from some of the clergymen, for example, in Chicago. That's where we had our mass meetings and they were open with their churches, et cetera. But there was a different kind of thing that I realized, which I never realized before. And that was, there was a conservative attitude on the part of some of the clergy and people involved in leadership of the black church. In the South, we understood that what would be considered, quote, conservatism, unquote, was actually fear because they really understood we were about, and they believed in what we were trying to accomplish, but they were

actually afraid for their lives and they were afraid that churches would get bombed. That was not the situation in the North. They were certainly, you know, for its fine support for this kind of thing. But that conservative attitude had much more to do with their values rather than, you know, the fear. And that was a conservative black person. That's the first thing I heard. It was funny to me because that was sort of antithetical because most black people I know, you know, wanted to be free and would, you know, do what they could, you know, to participate if they could overcome the fear. We served mainly as a catalyst to try to raise the conscience of these people with whom we were working. And many cases were successful with them and ultimately we were successful in a long term. But in many cases, we met a coal resistance among some of the blacks who did not, you know, really appreciate what we were trying to accomplish. And can you talk about the effect of the daily machine? I mean, did you, were you surprised at some blacks who you thought supported you? Who you turned around and you found out they weren't? One of the surprises is that we thought that

many of the blacks who were part of the daily machine, you know, would have been supportive. But we found that some were very unsupportive and they were not, you know, they were very supportive of the movement in the south. But when we talk about the kind of issues and problems that exist in their own communities, because they were very tightly controlled, even down to the precinct level. There were people who were very resistant. And we came to understand that because people, you know, their jobs were tied to their involvement and the maintenance of the machine. And when we began to challenge some of the conditions and some of the issues there in the local communities and those, you know, areas, then we got the severe reaction. Can you give me any specific times when you saw that happen? One specific thing was when we were working on the West side of Chicago in the Lucy Jean Lewis campaign. It was a black woman who we were running for

representative. And I was passing out to leave it on one side of the street. And I was approached by a black person, black male, who told me to get out of there. And he showed me his pistol. And I took the same position that I would take in the south that I would write to be here. And unfortunately, you don't agree. But I will stay here. You do what you have to do because I'm going to do what I have to do. And I later on found out that he had a job as some kind of security officer. And that's why he was carrying the gun. But he was also part of the machine. And so he was protecting his job. And I was trying to open it up so some old people could get some job in decent housing and that sort of thing. What do you mention fishing for the issues? What did that mean for the movement? One of the things the movement did was to fish for issues. While there were a myriad of problems

that exist, what is a single problem that you can come up with? And this is one of the things that Martin Luther King was very good at. He did it on one issue and he would stay on it until something was accomplished. So one of the things we did was kind of fish around and began to see which of these problems would lend itself to dramatizing as it were in Chicago. We found one of the things the movement did was to fish for issues because there were always a lot of problems in any community where we worked. Like Martin Luther King, for example, one of his success was the fact that he stayed on one issue until something was actually accomplished and sometimes people should do that. In Chicago. What are the things the movement always did? In any community and we also did in Chicago and that was to fish for issues. There are many

problems in the community, just a myriad of problems and that sort of business. But the important thing is to try to find one issue that's predominant and stay with that issue until you're able to get some resolution. Well one of the things the movement did was to actually fish for issues while there were a mere problems in the community. Important thing was to identify the most predominant problem and be able to work on that particular problem until there was some results. And that was one of the things that was very important about the way Martin Luther King approached problems in the community. In Chicago it was important for us to try a variety of things so we could begin to flush out, so to speak, some of the real issues and problems around which people

could be organized. It was important for us to get the people involved. It was very interesting when James Bevel, the SCLC organizer from the South, came when I was here in Chicago initially and he was up for a little vacation from the South and he said, well what are you talking about? There's no problems up here. Everybody looked at me there eating and looking at all those people they're fat and they're fine and healthy and daily is good to everybody. So what's the problem down? We don't have any problems. He was sort of teasing but trying to force us to think critically about what really was the problem because you saw no signs of segregation. There were obviously conditions that were affecting blacks more so than other people for example. But when you began to look at the problem it was not simply a black and white problem. There were problems that affected black. They also affected a large number of whites and I think that this is the thing that was different about some of the things we approached in the North. The lead poisoning for an example

we began to work on organizing people in the tenant unions and as a result like one time my secretary didn't show up, secretary of the tenant union who was a local woman who was a single parent and I asked what happened because she was always very faithful and she said well I had taken my kids to the hospital say what I would have been eating some paint chips from the wall and the doctor said that they had all kinds of problems caused vomiting and it could cause brain damage. I say what? I mean you know just was not aware that that was one of the things was some. It occurred to me that a baby even in the crib would not be safe because you had peeling paint to come down from the sealants and eating at those paint chips meant that that person could be primarily damaged. So it did not matter whether you had good schools or good housing and good recreational programs when you have a brain damaged baby. So that became the issue and we began to organize an anti-led poisoning project and we began to address the local government

and the daily machine from the health department and I was stunned because we began to talk about these problems, health problems with children who were helpless and I say well why don't we have a screening program on the west side of Chicago so we can determine how many of these kids are already affected by this problem and have let you know in their blood and he said while if we did that the hospitals would be filled and that really shocked me that he was more concerned about the hospitals being filled rather he was simply let the children die and continue to be victim of the problem. So I was really angry about that and we went back and organized the community and one of the things that's important is to get people in the community to take responsibility for the problems. So I purchased these high school students and I said well look here is the problem these babies are dying and these are your sisters and brothers by the way and children in your community and somebody has to take responsibility you know what you do it. We organized a group called

Seoul student organization for urban leadership and they began to have meetings and we began to figure out what we could do so we decided what we would do we found a chemist from line in hospital and he helped to develop a litmus test so he said what we would do is go around and collect the urine and at least test the urine to see if they had corporate porthole which is a byproduct of and and these students have put on lab jackets and they felt really good and they went around and they had to learn how to get the urine because you have to get the urine from the girls different from the boys and so they had to learn these different techniques they put in their hands and water but they got excited about it and people wouldn't do something about the problem. So what we did in effect was to dramatize the problem although we could not solve the problem it's important that people who have victims of the problem can learn how to dramatize the problem as Jim Bellos says people who are oppressed have to learn how to cry dramatically and effectively in order to get help from others who can't help.

What are the reasons we went into the housing issue for example in Chicago is because virtually everyone is affected by housing we began to see that there were patterns of segregation and discrimination clear patterns for an example there was no signs that said blacks cannot live here but it was white only and it was obvious they're white only and there were reasons why it was white not because blacks choose chose not to live in those communities it's because they were systematically denied primarily by the real estate agent 90% of the housing is sold is by the real estate agents so therefore the real estate agents have control and they were doing very tight kind of you know what we call blockbusting where they would allow a few blacks to move into a neighborhood it was all white in order to cause the whites to become fearful.

And many of the real estate agents claimed that oh well this is just good business because you had black and white real estate agents working together and this was different about the south also they worked hand in hand here in Chicago because they all made money and because the blacks were willing to pay more money for overpriced housing because that market was limited for them. The whites on the other hand because they were afraid of blacks because the fear had been helped they helped put the fear in them about real estate agents calling some older white woman for an example and you know breathing very heavily on the phone and going to the limit in terms of what they can do to intimidate people and a real estate agent said well you know I can help you now and we might be a good price for your house but you know a few months from now you know the prices are going down the value of properties going down because the blacks are moving in in the same breath the price for housing the same housing for blacks going up and they claimed that they were serving their clients well you know it's very curious

and they were even intimidated them about the insurance was going up for their homes because they claimed that more crime was going to be in the community so this is called whites who already paid for their homes or near you know finishing their mortgage to jump up and then get into another mortgage at a higher rate and most of the time they would be they could only afford less housing than they already had and this caused that kind of turnover well whenever the real estate turnover everybody made money the banks and the real estate companies and the taxes and everything else went into a play so therefore blacks were victims and whites so the slums actually was a way of exploiting both black and white one of the reasons why we focus people are still a little black folks who are not going to be that great in the neighborhood can you talk about how the city plays into that one of the problems that we observe was that

the conditions in the black community you know we're just really sort of show that it was uncam and one piece one of the things that we recognize is that in the black communities many cases the city did not keep up the same level of services for example the parks were neglected you know where black people lived the streets were not swept and you know these are basic kind of things that have something to do with the appearance of the community so naturally when white people saw you know the condition of the community they then assumed that that was going to happen to their community and so therefore they assumed it was related to blacks well blacks didn't do it because blacks you know didn't have the power to determine who was sweep their streets and when they would be kept and so everybody was part of conspiracy the realtors for example in terms of managing the buildings they begin to let the buildings fall down and not repair things the city in fact it was a little girl in one of our hearings that we had when we testified and that sort of

business uh we're not going to be able to go into it oh okay yeah well the statement you made contrary to what the black community sometimes sees um well how did you see the the government actually playing into a downgrading but they were like once blacks didn't do many of the whites began to see that what happens to black communities and they became afraid that it was going to happen to their communities what was not seen was the fact that the city neglected the services of that community the streets were not swept the parks were not taken care of so it was an abandonment of those communities which was really not the fault of black people during the march at market park it was the first time we actually marched on a protest demonstration as opposed to a sympathy march that many people have had in the south this time

they were marching specifically on the riddles of this office and we identified them as actually participate in discriminatory practices so it was a great deal of excitement there were large numbers of people from the urban communities as well as suburban communities we had a lot of whites one thing was kind of funny I saw you know we had one white couple drove up in a chauffeur driven limousine you know and all dressed up and everything they were only way to some cocktail party no doubt but they wanted to be part of this demonstration so he had all kind of people participating and but when the violence took place when they tried to return to their cars they found that the cars were overturned and some of them that they tried to you know break out all the windows and that sort of business etc the mob decided they could not attack the demonstrators so they attacked the cars now talk now about the about the gauge car march and if you can't talk about how you use the gangs as well in gauge park we had the experience of really realizing that we need to be organized and prepared to deal with it we had no idea that the level of violence was

so prevalent in those communities we actually used the gang members because we had become familiar with them working in the community that kind of thing and of course they many times challenged us on the whole issue of non-violence because they were not about to buy that but one of the things we found out about the gangs they were disciplined and it was also obviously a count of you know character of courage on the part of them and that's what we needed in terms of marshals discipline and courage and they had no problems following directions because they were all going to ask that way so by working with the gangs we had workshops and trained them as marshals they worked out beautifully it was just a fantastic experience to see them not down broken bottles and bricks you know protecting the people in the marches they felt a sense of responsibility and I think it shows the potential of what many of the gang members can really have and can you talk about H. Park and then Dr. King of course Gage Park was one of the places where we

experienced some of the greatest kind of violence the fact Martin Luther King said himself he'd been experienced violence in the South etc he said but he had never seen the ugliness of violence you know the contorted faces of the people and the viciousness in fact Martin Luther King was struck by a brick engage park in the line of march they would set off by crackers and they would throw bricks and bottles and all sorts of things they would yell and it was so surprised to see young people behave that way and either and even old white women they were really showing the worst of humanity and can you talk about how and what did you see when you saw Dr. King get hit by the rocket and say when Dr. King got hit? Well we were marching it was on a Sunday I believe and the brick was thrown and unfortunately you know it landed right in terms of Martin Luther King head and for everyone crowded around him and I remember Jesse Jack was not too far away and they

pushed his head down in order to protect him because we realized that that was going to be a serious problem in terms of his being a target then the crowds that's the way it was like well that Friday when the gauge park demonstration took place we had people from all over coming in we'd organized the gangs to help with the marshals and it was really amazing to see the gang members learn very quickly what their responsibilities were because they were always disciplined and another thing they had courage and which was one of the characteristics and requirements you know for good marshals so once they had the training they worked out beautifully it was really something to see them participate as marshals knocking down bricks and broken bottles and that sort of thing the Martin Luther King was struck on the head with a brick and I remember

the reaction everybody had they all you know search forward and the marsh was stopped everybody says halt wait you know and I remember Jesse Jackson running in because he was right near Martin Luther King and they held the Martin Luther King's head down because we knew he would be the target of any kind of you know personal attack and we tried to regroup ourselves I remember the tension that people had and I we were felt completely surrounded it was like being in a long dark quarter although the complete community was white and we were deep in the white community and they had us completely surrounded literally thousands of people and I never even suspected that that many people had such strong hostility and resentment and well we didn't know whether we were going to come out of that situation alive because they outnumbered the policemen if you could say when you mentioned the gangs not so much so good in transit age part but you said at one point that was one moment time when you saw it and you gave something useful they would do it

can you say something like that kind of breathing? The thing that really impressed me was the fact that for this one moment these gang members were actually doing some things that were you know showed the best it brought the best out of them and I think that's what movement did in general and these gang members felt a sense of responsibility a sense of pride a sense of giving back to the community a sense of protecting the community and doing something to change these conditions that also created the problems that they had and I really felt that this showed the potential of what could happen if people were given some direction and support and the opportunity to do something creative and positive in their communities one of the reasons why we accepted the court because we felt that the time had come

for us to try to do some serious negotiations we had had the demonstrations we had dramatized the issues and we had to then try to consolidate the gains that have been made as a result and although the movement's responsibility is not to solve the problems the movement is like a catalyst we take the natural ingredients there and to dramatize them so such an extent that people realize the urgency of doing something about the problems because the problems are already there so we felt that we had completed that job and bringing the situation to that point of negotiations besides it was coal in Chicago and it was time to go back home to the south and so we wanted to at least try to put something together that could make a difference and those accords many times people had feelings about it and wonder whether or not we were able to get as much out of situation but I think obviously we set things in the right direction

well I was pushing for SCLC to come into Chicago as opposed to some of the other communities of this period number one because I was there and had been sent actually to work for the American Friends Service Committee to experiment with non-violence in a northern urban community and we'd already started some things there okay well there were several reasons that SCLC decided to come to Chicago number one the American Friends Service Committee already started a project here in the area of housing and a lot of the documentation and studies have been done so there was a documentation in terms of the discrimination in housing and that was very clear the other reason was because

there was a CCCO according in Council of Community Organization and the community was united its leadership and organizations were there so they extended the invitation to monitor the the other interesting fact was those Airborne League and Dennis study and it showed that 42% of the blacks in Chicago were either first or second generation from Mississippi so they were familiar with us they knew the freedom songs they were part of the movement in many cases because there was a lot of interaction between Chicago and Mississippi during the blacks keeping in touch with each other that kind of thing so you had a receptive community also because you had the daily machine which was considered a liberal machine and there was support there were many blacks who were in elected positions on congressional levels where we had our black congressmen strong black congressmen strong civil rights you know legislators so there was a feeling that we would be able to succeed because we had a great deal of support here in Chicago we also had large

members of people coming from Chicago to participate in the movement besides giving funds and that kind of thing so Chicago proved to be much more ideal in terms of support and because of the conditions and we thought it would be able to gain something here that perhaps might not be possible in some of the other communities so that was also familiarity we had a lot of the ministers and many of them were very much a part of the SCLC clergy network and so to for those reasons SCLC decided that Chicago probably would be there one of the things done is period is that you had riots in many of the northern communities and some of the other large urban areas like Watts and other places in Chicago in Chicago there were riots but one of the reasons why you didn't have anything similar to some of the other cities where you had large members of people

being killed on streets in the ghetto community is because SCLC had a presence in Chicago doing that period in fact we organized a peace corps and we went out into communities doing the right itself and began to work with the people and also work with the policemen and those who were in charge of policemen you know shadowing them and saying no you can't shoot you can't kill people in this community got to come up with a better answer I remember Jesse Jackson's responsibility was the shadow Nolan who was the human relations person and he was right on the scene and Jesse was very tall and he towered him you know and said no we you know we can't do that that was his responsibility other workers went out and worked with the people who were actually participating you know in the disturbance and that was a way of quell in the situation so we could save lives and began to have a movement that could truly address those kind of problems well we had different roles to play and one of my roles was to go in with the gangs and to try

to redirect them from confrontation with the policemen where we knew they were good killed so I worked directly with them I was small and maybe I looked like a gang member but we were able to keep them from having the confrontation directly was it something like it was it's something organized to come into this into Chicago well as a southern organizer coming into Chicago it was very different first of all it was cold the next thing the place was overcrowded because the place was steaming with people and all over the place all sorts of different problems and you can see in the faces of the people that they had different kind of you know experiences a lot of them were not very good the other thing that struck me was the amount of glass in the streets there was so much broken glass in the streets

but in many ways that broken glass represented the broken lives in the ghetto community and there was a sense of being overwhelmed because there was so much of everything the buildings were so tall the streets were so wide and the the the climate was so cold it's like there was a sense of sadness in a real sense and it was really a question of whether or not this situation could be changed but we had to have hope because there was no alternative in fact the only other option was beyond thinkable what are the things that we found that there were people who were just simply out for themselves and they felt that they had to defend themselves even the children had to thin for themselves and there was a sense of hopelessness and uncarrying in the whole community and one of the things you found that in the daily machine that you had

blacks against blacks that was not a sense of unity and the color lines meant nothing in that regard because you would find as many conservative blacks as you would find conservative whites who also participated in many ways in helping to perpetuate the system that exists and it seemed that many times people were simply out for themselves for not wanting to make the kind of sacrifices that it would take in order to make the the kind of changes there were blacks who had gotten in positions of power but instead of using that power to bring about changes in the community to help many other black people they simply used that power to help themselves and the reason they did that we understood it because they too felt a sense of hopelessness and sometimes people feel that when they cannot help the people then they simply helped themselves. If you would respond on the criticism and frustration and the deal with the administration it's

easy to come into a city and articulate a problem and give people all stirred up in representing those emotions. One of the things that people were accused of movement I was coming to the city getting everything stirred up and then you know leaving whatever etc but the role of the movement is catalytic in a sense that it is to bring these things to a head to articulate the problems and to stir things up in a sense of giving people hope. See people change when they begin to have hope so you do turn things upside down but actually the movement does not solve problems the movement actually present the problems in such a dramatic way that people feel the urgency of doing something about them rather than simply letting them exist as a status quo. So once we do that then it's responsibility of the administration, the government who has the responsibility for making decisions who also have the government has the resources

for solving these problems many times we have the laws on the books that exist but they're not being enforced. So as a result of the movement people began to see the necessity of actually enforcing law and being able to set forth those policies and do things to make things work and to change the conditions. Black folks don't create slums because they don't have the power to make decisions about where they live and it's not the fact that they want to live in Marquette Park with white people. They want to live everywhere and have the opportunity to be free and to have the same kind of opportunities that anyone has in the problem with the slums is the fact that they are limited in terms of where they can live and therefore they pay more for housing and have less quality in what we're demanding in the market situation as well as other places here in Chicago was that people would have the same kind of freedom guaranteed them by the Constitution that

segregation in housing is no different from segregation in schools and segregation is the voting polls and the thing is that the reason why we have slums is because black people do not have the power if they had the power they would not live in slums and wouldn't create the you know the kind of conditions that we see in the community and the fact that those in power are those that are responsible for the creation of the slums. Well Marquette Park was chosen because there was a community that was far removed from the dividing line where blacks and whites lived and the problem is that we wanted to try to overcome that line and move people further from that line of demarcation where the blockbuster was taken place. The other reason is because Marquette Park was a place where you had pretty much a

solid white community and blacks were not allowed to live there and they were not shown how this better real estate agent or apartments that sort of thing. Now the reason we chose Marquette Park also is because it represented a political entity in a sense that it was a swing vote in that community and we knew that would get the attention of democratic leadership in that kind of swing community because it would draw attention to them. Also we recognize that when people on blacks would move in to many of these white communities that the real estate agents would tell the whites and the community that the value of the property was going to go down but in fact when a black would move in the property the cost of the property would go up so they'd tell whites one thing and black something else on the other hand so it was not true that the value's property values went down. It was only when whites would buy into that kind of argument and that kind of impression

that was given by the real estate agents so it was demonic in a sense. Okay now can you tell me when you're marching in Marquette Park is the issue is this just race? Many people saw the marches in Marquette Park as really racial in a sense that white people you know didn't like black folks and they responded but it was not the case at all. I think to certain extent on the surface people could see this and it turned you know it can interpret it that way but at the bottom if blacks coming into the age park were meant that the property values would go up I think blacks and whites would have second thoughts as to whether or not they wanted to keep blacks out but because of the myth that was perpetuated and because they were blacks they were easily identifiable and so therefore whenever you have an identifiable group then they can be targeted as the problem but the problem was not the blacks the problem was the economics of the situation it was controlled by real estate agents in both the blacks and the whites were

exploited in the situation because of color color had it out to do with it but it was an element that was exploited.